Hello and welcome to this meditation

with me, Henry Shookman. I'm really

delighted and honored and quite humbled

to be offering this to you. This is the

first of a little set of four

meditations and it's designed to help

you find a moment of peace in the midst

of a busy day or possibly at the end of

a long tiring day or before your day

starts. anytime you feel a little

intervention to help your nervous system

would be a good thing for you. So, we're

just going to do a simple body scan

basically which grounds us, centers us,

brings us back into the heart of our own

being, which then helps us to function

uh and perform better in the course of

our day with more peace and a better

regulated nervous system. So come into

any comfortable seated position. If you

want to recline, no problem. Lie down if

that's available to you. That's also

just fine.

I'm going to assume that you're sitting

in the guidance that I offer. So just

get comfortable.

Close your eyes or lower your gaze. Let

your hands rest in your lap or on your

thighs or perhaps by your side.

We're going to start with a little very

short poem just to bring us in.

Only be still.

Only be still. It doesn't matter where

you've come from. It doesn't even matter

where you think you want to go.

For now, all that matters is your being

still.

Whatever catastrophe or grief or

yearning or hope or promise has brought

you here to this very seat just now.

Put them aside. Set them aside. For now,

all that matters is your being still.

So let your body become still.

Yeah. Many of us carry some tension in

our jaw. So see if you can let your jaw

slide forward and down

just a little bit. It may only go a

millimeter.

That can make all the difference.

Release the jaw.

Can you find a kind of softness

in your throat?

Jaw and throat soft at ease.

Let your arms hang. Be slack.

Be loose.

Bring your awareness now into your chest

area, your rib cage, and see if you can

just get a taste of it being warm and

soft,

like warm wax.

Just a general sense of warmth and

softness

in the upper body, especially the chest

area.

And likewise the belly. Let the belly be

soft and warm

and loose.

Sense the pressure

of your upper body in your buttocks

where they meet the seat.

Let them relax. Let your hips spread

just a little tiny bit.

Looseness

is our guidepost here. becoming softer

and kind of floppier

in the body even while we may be sitting

upright.

Now the upper legs, let them also be

warm and soft. They don't need to be

doing anything right now.

Just at ease.

And the lower legs, let them also be

soft.

relaxed.

Ankles and feet

at ease.

Hands.

Hands are slack, limp,

resting.

Face. Let face be soft.

Let the whole head,

the cranium, the top of the skull,

the back of the skull, the sides of the

skull,

whole head

at ease,

resting.

So now the entire body

is still

at rest

at ease.

Perhaps you can get a sense of the whole

body being

enveloped in a in a warmth

in a a kind of energy field of warmth.

or as if in a subtle cloud

of ease and warmth

that you're granted this possibility

just now of having your whole body

find its way to restful

ease.

Okay, we'll gently come out of the

meditation now. So, bring some movement

into your fingers. Just wiggle your

fingers, wiggle your toes, open your

eyes, raise your eyes,

come back into the space that you're in.

Great. Thank you so much for joining me

in this little mini journey into the

ease that's actually always here waiting

for us if we just learn a few skills to

help us tap into it. Next time we'll be

exploring how doing less can help us do

more. Thank you very much indeed for

joining me.